Folks,
Over the past year or so I have read this list with great
pleasure (it's great to know that there are other folks out
there who share my passion for these sorts of books), but
mostly in silence -- I figured the various discussions could
go on just as well, if not better, without my throwing in my
2 cents worth all the time.
However, I now have an announcement to make that should be
worth slightly more than 2 cents, so I figured I'd emerge
from my habitual
"lurker's silence" to make it here.
Earlier this week, the company I run, Winterfall LLC, signed
a 12-book deal to publish a new series of mass-market
paperback crime novels done in the old style everyone on this
list remembers and loves. Each book will be short (~200
pages), vibrantly written, irresistibly plotted, and
unapologetically in the hardboiled/noir tradition, and each
will feature an original cover painting that would look right
at home next to a Belarski or a McGinnis, along with graphic
design that recalls the golden age of PBOs.
We expect roughly half the line to be reprints of great but
(largely) forgotten books from the 1940s through the 1970s
and the other half to be original novels by current authors
whose work has a spiritual kinship with the old masters. The
first four titles are scheduled to come out in September
2004, to be followed (assuming the market's response is at
least decent) by the next eight over the subsequent ten
months. If the market's response is not only decent but
enthusiastic, we'd hope to turn the 12-book test into an
ongoing series.
A few of you on the list know me, and know I've been working
on this project for well over a year, meeting with
essentially every major publisher in the business, trying to
convince them that this sort of material deserves to be in
print, that there's a passionate audience that will buy it
(especially at a mass market price point of $5-6/book), and
that even readers who don't already know they like this sort
of book probably will once they try it. It requires a leap of
faith on the part of a publisher, and I am pleased to say we
found one willing to take that leap with us (I'll share their
name as soon as they give me the green light to do so
publicly). We don't have as large a budget to work with as
we'd ideally like -- does anyone, ever? -- but we should be
able to achieve our goal of putting out a line of books that,
were I to stumble across it in a bookstore, would trigger all
sorts of embarrassing Pavlovian reactions.
There isn't a lot more to announce at this point -- after
all, we are still a year away from seeing the first titles
roll off the press -- but I promise I'll post additional
information as things progress. In the meantime, there are
ways in which everyone on this list could help us out:
1) REPRINTS: While I already have a list of a few dozen of my
favorite long-out-of-print titles to pursue (and only ~6
reprint slots to fill, at least initially), if any of you
have suggestions of obscure items I ought to look into (i.e.,
no Chandler, no Hammett, no MacDonald, no Goodis, no
Thompson, no Cain, no Woolrich -- not that these aren't great
writers, but plenty of their work is already in print, and in
any event we already know about all the usual suspects), I'd
be grateful to get them. If you once read a book so good that
ten years after reading it you still feel a shiver of delight
when you think about it, I'd like to know about it. Note that
to work for us, it would also have to have aged well -- some
otherwise strong books are basically unpublishable today, for
instance because of casual racism or grotesque sexism that
just can't help but interfere with a modern reader's
enjoyment of the story (we probably won't be reprinting
Chase's "12 CHINKS AND A WOMAN," for example) or because the
plot turns on some element that a modern reader would find
hopelessly (or incomprehensibly) dated.
2) ORIGINALS: We're looking for books of 55,000-75,000 words
that could have been Gold Medals (or the tougher sort of Dell
mapback) back in the day. Period doesn't matter: We'd be just
as happy with a story set in 2004 as one set in 1944, as long
as the flavor of the thing is right.
(Earlier than WWII probably wouldn't work, though -- no Civil
War noir
[though Cain came close to pulling it off once or twice], no
hardboiled samurai detectives, no Elizabethan troubadors
spouting Chandlerian wisecracks between forsooths.) Again, we
only have 6 slots to fill
(actually 5, since we've shaken hands with one author
already), and most of the books we publish will probably come
from authors we approach directly, but if any of you have a
book you think might be suitable, we'd gladly take a look.
(The money isn't great -- you not only won't get rich selling
to us, you'd probably make at least a little more selling to
virtually anyone else outside of a royalty-only or P.O.D.
house -- but it's not zero...and how many chances are there
to be part of a line like this?)
3) HELPING US SPREAD THE WORD: It's premature to do anything
now, but as we get closer to the launch date for the series,
we would be very grateful for any help (or advice about
things we might do, given the constraint of a limited budget)
that might bring these books to the attention of the widest
possible audience. The best chance we have of making this an
ongoing series is to make the first titles successful, and
strong word of mouth is one of the best ways to make that
happen.
(Of course, we wouldn't expect strong word of mouth unless
you actually like the books once you see them. We'll do our
damnedest to make sure you do...)
HOW TO REACH US: I'll keep reading this list, of course, so
feel free to post anything that is appropriate for public
discussion (i.e., "My favorite obscure book I'd like to see
reprinted") here. If you want to contact us about a book
you've written or touch base about anything else that's
better handled through one-on-one communication, you can
reach us by sending e-mail to
WinterfallBooks@hotmail.com . (Please don't send
manuscripts of entire novels to this address, though, since I
don't know what Hotmail's limits are on message size and
mailbox size. If you send a query and we're interested, we
can give you our main corporate address to use for actual
manuscript submissions.)
Apologies for the length of this message (it occurs to me
that if you respond publicly you probably shouldn't quote the
whole thing in your reply), and many thanks for any help you
can give. We're very excited about this new project, and hope
to turn it into something you'll be excited about, too.
Best, Charles
----------- Charles Ardai President Winterfall LLC
WinterfallBooks@hotmail.com
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